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Greene County Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:GCBC) stock is about to trade ex-dividend in three days. If you purchase the stock on or after the 13th of August, you won't be eligible to receive this dividend, when it is paid on the 31st of August.
Greene County Bancorp's next dividend payment will be US$0.12 per share, and in the last 12 months, the company paid a total of US$0.48 per share. Last year's total dividend payments show that Greene County Bancorp has a trailing yield of 2.2% on the current share price of $21.62. Dividends are an important source of income to many shareholders, but the health of the business is crucial to maintaining those dividends. So we need to check whether the dividend payments are covered, and if earnings are growing.
View our latest analysis for Greene County Bancorp
Dividends are typically paid from company earnings. If a company pays more in dividends than it earned in profit, then the dividend could be unsustainable. Greene County Bancorp is paying out just 20% of its profit after tax, which is comfortably low and leaves plenty of breathing room in the case of adverse events.
Generally speaking, the lower a company's payout ratios, the more resilient its dividend usually is.
Click here to see how much of its profit Greene County Bancorp paid out over the last 12 months.
Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?
Businesses with strong growth prospects usually make the best dividend payers, because it's easier to grow dividends when earnings per share are improving. If earnings decline and the company is forced to cut its dividend, investors could watch the value of their investment go up in smoke. It's encouraging to see Greene County Bancorp has grown its earnings rapidly, up 21% a year for the past five years.
Many investors will assess a company's dividend performance by evaluating how much the dividend payments have changed over time. In the last 10 years, Greene County Bancorp has lifted its dividend by approximately 3.5% a year on average. Earnings per share have been growing much quicker than dividends, potentially because Greene County Bancorp is keeping back more of its profits to grow the business.
Final Takeaway
Should investors buy Greene County Bancorp for the upcoming dividend? When companies are growing rapidly and retaining a majority of the profits within the business, it's usually a sign that reinvesting earnings creates more value than paying dividends to shareholders. This is one of the most attractive investment combinations under this analysis, as it can create substantial value for investors over the long run. We think this is a pretty attractive combination, and would be interested in investigating Greene County Bancorp more closely.